Clay Clark: Boom, boom, business coach boom. Welcome back inside the room and welcome back into your audio dojo of mojo and the place that you go to learn how to start or grow a successful business. What is so exciting about the Thrive Time business coach show is that we are helping business coach entrepreneurs like you grow businesses and one by one, rumors of their successes are beginning to spread. A client pulls me aside and says, “Are you guys working with Barbie Cookies?” And I said, “Yes, we are.” And they go, “I’ve noticed her change. She used to be over here, now she’s over here. The decor’s different. Are you guys working with Steve Currington?” I said, “Yeah.” “Didn’t that guy just buy a Lamborghini?” Someone said, “Are you working with those Tip Top dog training people?” And that person, Zig, tell the story because there’s a story. We’re working with a client …
Dr. Zelner: I have a young lady that works for me. She’s one of my supervisors. Her name is Natricia.
Clay Park: Natricia.
Dr. Zelner: It’s like Patricia with an N. It took me a while to kind of get that figured out.
Clay Clark: Hello Natricia.
Dr. Zelner: Yes, Natricia. And she was telling my daughter, who’s now a doctor in my practice, way to go Bridget, Dr. Anderson.
Clay Clark: Bam.
Dr. Zoellner: She was telling her that her husband finally got a job where he wasn’t having to work crazy hours and she goes, “Oh, cool. What is it?” She goes, “He’s going to be a dog trainer.” She’s like, “Okay.” She goes, “Yeah, no, they’re training him on how to train dogs.” My daughter was telling me that the other day. We get together and have lunch and dinner on occasion. She was telling me the story, just kind of a side note. I said, “Well, what’s the name of the place where Natricia’s husband …” And I met him at the Christmas party. You were there, I’m sure you met him too.
Clay Park: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Zelner: Or if you didn’t, you saw him. And she said, “Well, it’s Tip Top Canine.”
Clay Clark: And so, the thing is, you know why they’re hiring more people?
Dr. Zelner: Yeah. Because they’re rolling. They’re rocking.
Clay Park: They’re growing.
Dr. Zelner: Their phones are ringing off the hook. I mean, it’s pretty exciting what’s going on over there and God bless them. I mean, now their questions went from, “How are we going to make it?” to, “How much money do we have to save for taxes?” I mean, it’s like a whole new paradise, you know?
Clay Park: You know, Witness Security, another client we worked with, we had him on the show one time, he’s topping Google in all these different markets and he came in and he’s actually recording his calls and scripting it out so other people can keep up with the inbound phone calls. They can’t keep up with them.
I’m just telling you, Oklahomies that are listening, there’s a couple things you need to know. One is if we do help you grow your business, you’re going to have new problems. The new problems are going to be like … Hey, Z, top tax bracket, income tax, how much at the end of the day do you have to pay in taxes? Not the dollar amount, but what percentage do you have to pay in taxes at the very top of the bracket?
: You’re on the spot right now. Just putting you on the spot.
Clay Park: I mean, roughly.
Dr. Zelner: Well, if you don’t do clever things, it can approach 50 here in Oklahoma because you’ve got, what, 37 …
: 50.
Dr. Zelner: You’ve got 37, what is it? 37 now I think is the highest federal and then state here in Oklahoma can be up to 10. So that’s 47.
Clay Park: And let me walk you through the math of this. So let’s say hypothetically that you’re [crosstalk 00:03:15] Let’s say hypothetical that you’re an optometrist. Hypothetically.
Dr. Zelner: Hypothetically.
Clay Park: And you hypothetically make seven figures as a business coach and other ventures. Let’s just say.
Dr. Zelner: Hypothetically.
Clay Park: So you have a million dollars. Well, the first step is you don’t have a million. You have $500,000. And then you buy a house. Let’s say hypothetically.
Dr. Zelner: Hypothetically.
Clay Park: And when you buy a house, they make you pay taxes on that thing, right?
Dr. Zelner: Stupid. not you business coach Clay Clark
Clay Park: So then you get the tax. You buy a car and you got to go buy … You bought a brand new car and you’re so excited. You pay $10,000 down. That’s all you got in the bank and then they go, “Oh, you got to get the tag and title.”
Dr. Zelner: Tag and tax.
Clay Park: Tag and tax. And then you go, “You know, I should probably get a pike pass and I got to probably pay taxes when I buy groceries. And you know, I should probably go ahead and pay that tax that’s required of me now. Then you know, I thought about traveling on airplane. I should probably put the taxes that are baked into the ticket. And I did go out to eat and I did have a glass of wine and there was taxes thrown in there.” And I looked up and I paid about 72% tax rate total when you add up all the numbers. And you go …
Dr. Zelner: “Is this Canada?”
Clay Park: Yeah, and you realize that the average American who makes over six figures typically just spends about 70% of their income in taxes without tax strategy. So your new problem is now you need a tax strategist because it’s a new problem, is this correct my fellow business coach friend and mentor?
Dr. Zelner: Business coach boom
Clay Park: So you exchanged a … The problem you used to have was, “I need customers, help.” And now you’re going, “I owe $70,000 in back taxes.”
Dr. Zoellner: I need a tax strategist. I’ve got a great tax story, by the way.
Clay Clark: Wow.
Dr. Zoellner: So my daughter, when she was real little, she got some money for her birthday, like say $10. And so we went to the store and she walked aisle to aisle and she gathered up $10 worth of stuff, right?
Clay Clark: $10 of accoutrements.
Dr. Zelner: Of accoutrement. Yes.
Clay Park: Decor.
Dr. Zelner: Yes. Of course, it was so cute watching her. She was like, “Okay, I can’t have both of these. I’ve got to choose right now between the shoes and a princess wand.”
Clay Park: And the stickers. The scratch and sniff stickers.
Dr. Zelner: So she does. We get up to the counter. We’re checking out. It’s like, “That will be $10.80.” She looked at me and I went.
Clay Park: What?
Dr. Zelner: And I looked at her and said, “Well, honey, that’s the tax.” She goes, “Well tax is stupid.”
Clay Park: And then after you pay the stupid taxes, then, I think it’s Dennis Simler … Dennis Simler … Is Dennis Simler the guy who sends us the letter we like so much? Is Dennis the guy? Does he send it to you, ?
: Yeah, we’re buddies.
Clay Park: Okay. So then he sends me a thing saying, “Hey, here’s all the stuff you’ve purchased and now you have to pay a franchise tax, which is 1% of everything you own. You have to pay some sort of property tax.” And then they have a thing called the sinking fund which in Oklahoma, it’s illegal to have a non-balanced budget. So what happens is the mayor, or the governor, or whoever it is, they go, “Well, we need to pay for that library somehow, so we’ll just go ahead and raise the taxes a little bit on you.”
Dr. Zelner: Just a little bit.
Clay Park: So anyway, long story short, today’s show, this is the name of today’s show, Z, and you got to get that music ready. It is Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems. That is the theme of today’s show.
Dr. Zelner: Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems.
Clay Park: So, , that’s my brother in law, full disclosure, and so his nickname, a lot of people used to call him J-Mo.
: J-Mo.
Clay Park: J-Mo. And so J-Mo is making mo’ money and is a business coach client, so I would like for you, it might be therapy, cathartic for you and the listeners out there, okay, but remember when you first started, the big problem was how do I get any customers, right?
: And the database.
Clay Clark: How to build a database. How to get people to invest in my idea. Now, people want to invest in your idea. They’re calling you, going, “Hey, buddy, I want to put money into this location.” Now they have 80 employees, ish. What kind of problems, today, what is a problem that you would be happy to share, maybe on the air, maybe today or in the last month? Kind of a problem you’re running into now that you didn’t have back in the day?
: Yeah, when you’re a startup, in that first year, that first couple months and you’re just worrying about keeping the lights on month to month, and the few employees you have, you’re not thinking about maybe long term and the growth that comes with a startup company which is why a business coach. So now, it’s a whole different ballgame as far as looking at investors and as more money comes in, you need those accountants. You need the payroll companies. You can’t do it all in-house anymore because you do have 70-80 employees and so you do need to hire outside staff and so it does cost you more money as you make more.
Clay Park: One thing that’s hilarious to me is when you look at the payroll that we pay now per week out, it was more than the total revenue we generated during the entire first year almost. From the time we started to that first year.
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Clay Park: Because actually did the build out himself. It took about six months, am I right?
: Yeah, the first location was six months, drawn out over a period of time, a little bit each day. We did the other start up as well. So in sports supplement companies or products …
Clay Clark: He funded the business by cold calling the sale products. We were teaching the dark arts of sales, Z, and the rule was-
Dr. Zelner: I just want to know, did you use all the old Amish techniques in building? Because for those of you who don’t know, he looks rather Amish-y. There’s a thing on TV called the Amish Mafia. I’ve never watched it, but I saw [crosstalk 00:07:56]
: I mean, I heard about it. I heard about it.
Dr. Zelner: That wasn’t your life story was it?
: can’t talk about that, but you know
Dr. Zelner: Anyway, you’re building out and while you’re building out, you’ve got to eat.
Clay Park: So he got a job working photography with one of our businesses.
: This is true.
Clay Park: And he did cold calls. I told him, “You have to learn sales.” So he’s doing cold calls for random companies, clients we’re working with, selling supplements and he’s doing all that. But it took, honestly, the first 12 months, from the time he started construction until we finished, it was about 50,000 of total revenue that was generated in about of a year-ish.
Dr. Zelner: Now, whenever you were cold calling and selling supplements, were you cold calling to sell the supplements? What were you selling in your cold call?
: Yeah, yeah. So we actually had a supplement line.
Dr. Zelner: So what was your strike rate? I mean was like at the end of the day, you’d make what? 100 calls a day? How many calls did you try to make a day?
Clay Park: 100 was the quota.
: It was at least 100. Yeah. 100 a day.
Dr. Zelner: Okay, so 100 a day. And how many of those, when the day was over and you’re putting your head on your pillow and you’re going to sleep, how many of those would be strikes, would be yes, would be you sold it to them, that you felt like you had a successful day? What was the rate?
: If you’d get 10% closing …
Dr. Zelner: Yeah, yeah. That’s pretty good.
: But you have the cold call, the guy you’ve never talked before and you’ve got to get through. The person that answers the phone is not the one that’s going to be making the calls and ordering the products. That’s just the receptionist-
Dr. Zelner: That’s the gatekeeper.
: Yes, gatekeeper right there. So I had to come up with elaborate stories as far as who I was. Especially after I call them the second and third and fourth time. And we knew each other by name.
Dr. Zelner: What was the craziest story you ever slipped through the gatekeeper to get to the dude? What was it? You were like [crosstalk 00:09:32].
Clay Park: Do you remember any stories from the business coach days
: Clay knows this story because we would report once a week to him and everything. And so with elaborate stories, I went all in. And so the most elaborate one I had was I was calling and the whole story was I’m calling this nutri-shop, nutrify, health foods store. They carry supplements, pre-workout, all that stuff if you’re in the gym. And so I just could not get past this lady. You know, she knew everything. So I went with … I was calling and I was shipping sea turtles. Baby sea turtles. This is a true story.
Clay Park: True story.
: Baby sea turtles.
Dr. Zelner: Okay, this is good. This is the kind of stuff we’re talking about on the business coach radio show
: And they were on the way and it was life or death because they could only stay out of the water so long. And so I said, “I need to talk to someone that can make decisions here. This is baby sea turtles. Their life is in jeopardy here.”
Dr. Zelner: Were they green sea turtles or they [crosstalk 00:10:27]
Clay Park: This lady was … We recorded the calls. So this lady was convinced that if she did not immediately get a hold of a decision maker, these baby sea turtles could die.
Dr. Zelner: This is real life. This is a true story. I can tell it’s true.
: But there was about 70% were cold calls and then 30% were follow up calls. She would fell in that follow up call category and so with those people, I had to come up with that new script. I had to come up with a creative story and I needed to get to that person who could make those decisions.
Dr. Zelner: Okay, wait a sec. Time out. Let’s go back to the sea turtles.
: Okay.
Dr. Zelner: So you’re calling this lady who has been just an absolute iron gate.
Clay Park: Won’t let you through.